Sunday, March 18, 2012

It should be time to start thinking about getting outside, getting my hands in the dirt once again. The first daffodils are blooming, as is the apricot tree. But after a mild and dry winter, March has decided to show its lion side and has dumped an inch of wet, sloppy snow on us this morning. I really can't complain. We need the precipitation - plus it saves me having to get the hoses out to water the trees. It should all be gone by tomorrow, anyway. So for today, I'll sit inside by the fire and watch the birds outside my windows.

A flicker eating snow on the deck railing.

Goldfinches waiting their turn on the sock feeder.

A black-capped chickadee, feathers puffed up against the cold.

And the first robin of Spring, wondering how much longer he'll have to wait.
Me too.

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Welcome to Firesign Farm!

writing about sustainability and simple living, high-desert gardening trials and tribulations, canning recipes and home cooking, sewing and other thrifty arts (occasionally, a personal fascination gets thrown into the mix, too).

Sadge (rhymes with badge, short for Sagittarius) and sweet husband Aries live on their semi-rural acre, watching as urban sprawl creeps ever closer. Can wood heat, gardens, clotheslines, and chickens co-exist with strip malls and high-density housing next door?

Where is Firesign Farm?High-desert northern Nevada, near Carson City, the state capital: just 30 minutes drive from Lake Tahoe and the California state line to the west, Reno to the north, and Virginia City and the Comstock Lode to the east.

Notable Quote

Nay, the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once.~John Donne

After I read the Little House on the Prairie books, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a pioneer - living off the land, in a cozy little home where my husband and I made everything in it. That dream never died. I did what I could, when I could. And then I met Aries – a fellow pioneer spirit. He started with a tiny house (all the plumbing on one wall of the kitchen – from the sink you’d walk through the shower stall to get to the toilet). He built a garage and added on a bedroom and bathroom. After we were married, we did all the work to turn it into a cozy home – wallpapering, sewing, building furniture, everything from laying floor tiles to texturing the ceiling. This isn't really a farm - it’s an urban homestead, on a little over an acre (half of that still just sand and sagebrush). But over the years we’ve raised horses, a goat, a pig, rabbits, ducks, geese, bees, chickens and guinea fowl (only the latter two here now). I dug up the horse corral with a pitchfork to put in a garden; we used our wedding present money to buy fruit trees. Through canning, dehydrating and cellaring, I rarely buy produce from the store. I'd say my childhood dream came true.